Grounding Yourself in Purpose

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“Some ideas just stick,” Laura Spence-Ash tells writers in Poets & Writers magazine. It’s important for writers to pay attention and find patterns and concepts that they themselves find pleasing, using those patterns to “find a way forward” in expressing ideas to their readers, the author explains.

“Sticky” ideas are important in content marketing, because they help the different elements – social media posts, blog posts, web pages and newsletters – “fit together” as components in an ongoing strategy. At Say It For You, we use the musical term leitmotifs. “The leitmotif is heard whenever the composer (of, say, an opera) wants the idea of a certain character, place, or concept to come across,” Chloe Rhodes explains in A Certain “Je Ne Sais Quoi.

In planning content marketing strategy for your business or professional practice, one important step, we explain to our clients, is to select four or five themes that are important to your point of view. As their marketing consultants, we will then make sure those themes appear and reappear in all their marketing communications.

Not to be confused with “keyword phrases”, themes express desirable outcomes resulting from successful use of a product, a service, or a methodology. For example, a residential air conditioning firm might use keywords such as “air conditioning”, “HVAC”, and “air conditioning repair”. The recurring themes, in contrast, might be “comfort” and “a healthy home environment”.

When owners express doubt about their ability to keep generating new content, I often remind them of late CEO of Apple Computer, Steve Jobs. Biographer Walter Isaccson noted that Jobs owned more than a hundred black turtlenecks.  Not only was this convenient, but it conveyed Jobs’ signature style. For much the same reason, defining “sticky” concepts about your industry, your products, and your services, helps, not only in keeping content focused and targeted,  but keeping it going! 

“Grounding yourself in purpose” means focusing on the ideas and the phrases that you find “stick in your mind”, on principles so valuable to you that you feel compelled to share them with your audience.  Use those “sticky” word patterns and concepts to “find the way forward”, feeling compelled to share those ideas with readers.

 

 

 

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No-Nos — and OKs — for Content Writers

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Earlier this week in my Say It For You blog, I showed how Mark Byrnes’ cautionary advice to financial advisors applies to creating content for blog posts, newsletters, and even emails. Today’s post represents my reaction to a list of common grammar rules Words Trivia thinks we content writers should actually break. 

The way the Words Trivia editors see things, overly strict grammar rules “leave writers constrained and limited in their expression”.  As a content writer and trainer, I agree – but only when it comes to some of those rules the editors claim are made-to-be-broken. I’d say “yes”, for example, to starting sentences with “and” or “but” to connect ideas and add flow, and “yes” to splitting the occasional infinitive.

  1. I most definitely concur with breaking the rule about maintaining consistent sentence structure and length throughout a piece. As the editors correctly point out, mixing short and long sentences can create a rhythm, emphasize certain ideas, and prevent monotony.
  2. Frankly, my feelings are mixed when it comes to embracing the “singular they“.  “They” may have been accepted in modern writing (going along with society’s respect for those who do not identify within the binary gender system).  However, rather than the highly awkward “Every nurse should take care of his/her own uniform and cover the expense him/herself”,  or “Every nurse should take care of their own uniforms…” (which still grates on my ear), I’d write simply, “Nurses should take care of their own uniforms, covering the expense themselves.” By being gender-neutral, we writers can avoid being either awkward or gender-insensitive. 
  3. In terms of using double negatives to emphasize contradiction, saying “I can’t get no satisfaction” may be fine for Rodney Dangerfield, but (sorry to disagree), not for marketing content writers.  Sure, as Forbes points out, humor is attention-grabbing and can serve to make business owners more relatable, but it can also cheapen ideas and even be offensive.

Yes, I know the online crowd likes to be informal, and yes, blog posts are supposed to be less formal and more personal in tone than traditional websites. But when content of any type appears in the name of your business (or in the case of our Say It For You writers, in the name of the business owned by one of our clients, the brand is being “put out there” for all to see.

My advice on content writing “no-nos” and “OKs” – Find the fine line between letting rules constrain your creativity and getting a grip on your grammar!

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Content Writing Mistakes to Avoid Like the Plague

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Mark Byrnes’ cautionary advice is meant for financial advisors, but some of the social media mistakes he’s telling his readers to avoid are warnings all content writers need to hear, and apply to blog posts, newsletters, and even email correspondence.

  • Not being authentic

Content that does not line up well with the firm’s brand or even the advisor’s unique individual brand will most likely be rejected by readers, Byrnes warns.

In your blog or newsletter, we teach at Say It For You, allow people to hear your distinct voice. Got limitations? Those may be precisely what makes you seem real to your readers. 

  • Being too salesy

Rather than boasting about all your own capabilities, put the target market first,  encouraging the audience by asking questions and conducting polls, the author suggests.

The tactic of using questions in titles is one I’ve often suggested to content writers, because often we can help searchers formulate their own questions by presenting one in the blog post or newsletter itself. 

  • Being too long winded

If content rambles on and on, viewers will click away and abandon anything that does not get to the point, Byrnes cautions.

Attempting to cover too much ground in a single blog post or even article, we lose focus, straining readers’ attention span.  Each post, I teach in content creation sessions, should contain a razor-sharp focus on just one story, one idea, one aspect of the business or practice.  

  • Taking the foot off the gas

Maintain consistency. Creating a steady stream of content takes time and patience. Interviewing other thought leaders and creating strategic alliances are ways to keep the content momentum going, Brynes suggests.

After years of being involved in all aspects of content creation for business owners and professional practitioners, one irony I’ve found is that consistency and frequency are rare phenomema. There’s a tremendous content fall-off rate, with most efforts abandoned months or even weeks after they’re begun. Yet, as online marketing guru Neil Patel stresses, websites that publish regular, high-quality content provide real value to users.

  • Hiding your personal side

Advisors should write about their involvement in community and in fundraising efforts, sharing their passions.

Content can focus on personal anecdotes relating to the owners’ community involvements and even to community happenings and concerns. 

  • Ignoring the trends

What are your clients and prospects doing online and why?  What has changed?

One rule of thumb in content marketing, we know at Say It For You, is to narrow down the target audience.  To be an effective marketing tool for your business, your content must be aimed at a specific segment of the market. Ask yourself : “Who are my readers?  What do they need?  Where are they ‘hanging out’ online?” 

All those “no-nos” listed in Financial Advisor Magazine? Content writers – take heed!.

 

 

 

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AIming to Be an Archive

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“Whereas the Big Five often let their older books fall out of print based on sales histories, some university publishers… think like a library, aiming to be an archive for authors’ books that remain in perpetuity,” Aaron Gilbreath advises in Poets & Writers magazine.

So what about online content? Does the Internet “think like a library”?
“The internet is often called a digital footprint that we leave behind us,” Mia Naumoska writes in internxt.com. Yet websites and social media platforms are constantly updating their algorithms, she cautions, resulting in some content being removed or even lost. Platforms may remove posts that violate community guidelines or terms of service, she adds. In general, though, blogs and articles posted on websites have a much longer lifespan than social media posts, because they are typically optimized for search engines and can be found through search queries for months or even years after publication.

An infographic by Content Hacker illustrates the comparative lifespans of different forms of content posting, ranging from TikTok’s few minutes to Facebook’s five hours, to YouTube’s thirty+ days to blogs, whose lifespan extends for years.

Evergreen content
It’s not only the platform on which content is posted, but the nature of the content itself that is a determinant of longevity, the Digital Marketing Institute explains. Evergreen content is not time-sensitive and can continue to drive traffic long after it is published. Instructional and informational pieces, for example, lend themselves to remaining relevant over long periods of time.

LinkedIn articles vs. LinkedIn posts
Posts on LinkedIn are short messages that can contain text, images, videos, links, and hashtags. On the other hand, LinkedIn articles are longer-form pieces of content, with more in-depth discussions, analysis, and storytelling, with a dedicated “Articles” space within your profile.

“Feature” blog posts
Feature posts are non time-sensitive, and in fact, the goal is to have the material be “evergreen”. (When someone searches for information on a topic, it’s quite possible for them to “matched up” with content written a long time ago.) Good informational content, after all, can have relevance even months and years later after it was first published!

At Say It For You, we’ve learned over the years, blogs and newsletters can balance feature stories with “news”. While we want content to “stick around”, readers need to know about new products and services they can now obtain, new partners or employees we want to introduce, and our recent or upcoming activities in the community.

At the same time, content marketers need to “think like a library”, providing long term value to readers and “aiming to be an archive”.

 

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Can You Be More Specific?

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“Capitalize on the post-holiday rush by driving incremental purchases amongst shoppers redeeming gift cards, taking advantage of longer sales windows or making returns,” the 2024 Digital Marketing Playbook advises. Just two weeks ago, at the Business Spotlight, I recall one of the presenters doing precisely that kind of “capitalizing” on post-holiday needs. When it was Troy Larson’s turn to give a 60-second “pitch” for his Alder Avenue Home Handyman business, he offered to help all of us not-so-handy parents assemble all those Christmas gifts.

“When a business understands their customers’ needs, they can tailor their products and marketing plan to better serve those needs, momencrm.com explains naming five main needs: 1. price points 2.convenience 3.sustainability 4.transparency 5.control/options. However, successful marketing messages are delivered “across channels when and where each person is most receptive”, epsilon.com emphasizes.

Researching and understanding your target market is one of the ABCs of all content marketing. Read, read, read, is my best advice as a content marketer, from local business publications to your competitors’ marketing materials – it all helps you hone your own message, we teach at Say It For You.

Using blog posts and newsletter issues to highlight specific services and product uses is a way to achieve razor-sharp appeal to prospects with an urgent, precise need. Interviewed for the article “Tips From the Inside” in Inc. Magazine, the purchasing agents of mega corporation Northrup Grumman answered: “Be as specific as possible when describing what you can do for us.”

 In Digital Marketing for Dummies, the authors stress that content marketing works only to the extent it is specific; the more specific you are in describing the shortcuts and solutions, the more engaging that content will be. What we have learned over the years at Say It For You is that the benefit of describing specific solutions holds true even if that solution is not one that fits precisely into the searcher’s inquiry – the general impression readers get is that they’ve come to a place where problems get solved!

Assembling the bicycle your daughter received for Christmas is only one of hundreds of different tasks that Alder Avenue handymen perform. But the secret of the “pow” in Troy Larson’s 60-second marketing “pitch” was that it was so very specific.

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